The strangest ever kick-offs

Plus: where does the term 'sixes and sevens' originate; are there fewer foreigners in the Premiership; and which teams have met the most in one season. Email your questions and answers to
knowledge@guardian.co.uk

The strangest ever kick-offs

Plus: where does the term 'sixes and sevens' originate; are there fewer foreigners in the Premiership; and which teams have met the most in one season. Email your questions and answers to
knowledge@guardian.co.uk

One of the more memorable kick-offs is Scotland's World Cup qualifier in Estonia in 1996. After Fifa ordered the match to be brought forward by three hours because of inadequate floodlights, the home side refused to turn up (citing insufficient notice), leaving Scotland with no opposition - and they still didn't win. The game kicked off on the stroke of 3pm, when Billy Dodds passed to John Collins - three seconds before referee Miroslav Radoman blew to end the farce. Despite Estonia's behaviour, Fifa ordered the match to be replayed, when the Scots were held 0-0 in Monaco.

And remember last season's Carling Cup first-round meeting between Yeovil and Plymouth Argyle? After defender Graham Coughlan sustained an injury, Lee Johnson's attempt to return the ball to Pilgrims goalkeeper Luke McCormick failed spectacularly, the ball accidentally sailing into the net. Yeovil responded by allowing Argyle striker Stevie Crawford to take the kick-off unchallenged, run all the way from the centre circle and put the ball into an empty net. The honourable gesture must have been good karma: Johnson went on to complete a hat-trick and secure his side victory.

Equally embarrassed by a kick-off mishap was Cambridge United striker Carlo Corazzin, according to Clive Vedmore: "In about 1994, he was booked after taking the kick-off incorrectly - Carlo didn't seem to understand that the ball has to go forward and kept tapping it backwards. After three or four attempts at retaking the kick-off, the official finally had enough and booked him. I think the ref got another player to restart in the end."

Even more comical was the goal Hans-Jorg Butt conceded for Bayer Leverkusen in his side's 3-2 win at Schalke in April 2004. Celebrating scoring his side's third goal just that little too much, the penalty-taking goalkeeper failed to notice the referee return the ball to Schalke; Ebbe Sand played the ball to Mike Hanke, who fired into the empty net from the halfway line. "I didn't think the referee would allow them to kick off so quickly," admitted the red-faced Butt later.

However, trumping all of these tales is Jan Egil Romestrand, who recalls a Norwegian local cup derby between Surnadal and Sunndal in April 2000. "While the game flowed back and forth, caution got the better of each team," he explains. "The full-time score was 0-0 and the first half of extra-time was goalless as well. At this point, Surnadal goalkeeper Olav Kåre Fiske had a certain urge and, as the teams regrouped during the half-time break, he succumbed and sought relief behind his left goalpost.

"Sadly, he underestimated his own capacity and his irrigation of the land was not finished when the referee decided the half-time break was. The whistle went and Sunndal striker Tor Oddvar Torve took a speculative punt directly from kick-off. With the goalkeeper still handling his unfinished business, he could do nothing but look over his shoulder as the ball sailed into the empty net. While a protest duly ensued, the referee did not crack and awarded the goal. Sunndal went on to secure the 1-0 win and the right to enter the HM King's Cup Championship."

WHERE DOES THE TERM SIXES AND SEVENS COME FROM?

"I am interested in learning the origins of the expression that a defence was at 'sixes and sevens' in dealing with an attack," says Eric Willis. "Can you help?"

Off to www.wordorigins.org to answer this one, Eric, which states: "'At sixes and sevens' is a very old catchphrase and relates to gambling. It first appears c.1374 in Chaucer's Troylus. The original phrasing was 'set upon six and seven'. It referred to betting one's entire fortune on one throw of the dice [this, it transpires, being a game called 'hazard', more commonly known as craps]. It connoted carelessness, and over time the phrase came to mean confusion, disorder, and disagreement." Apparently a plural form, 'to leave at sixes and sevens', was developed in the 1800s; it was still based on the same gambling metaphor, but the idiom was now used to signify a kind of confusion or neglect, rather that pure risktaking.

THE FOREIGNERS ARE COMING

Pete Anderson mails in to say: "In last weekend's Premiership games, there seemed to be a lot more British and Irish players in action. I was therefore wondering if this season there have been fewer foreign players starting than last season?"

It must have been an optical illusion, Pete, because the statistics are telling us otherwise: despite the trio of top-flight newcomers (West Ham, Wigan and Sunderland) fielding just seven 'foreign' starters between them, last weekend there were 116 British and Irish players out of the 220 that started games. For the corresponding weekend in the Premiership last season, there were 117; in the 2003-04 campaign there were 121; and in 2002-03 there were 119.

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

"Reading an old football yearbook recently, I noticed that in 1984-85, Wrexham were drawn against Wigan in the FA, League and Leyland Daf Cups, playing them five times in total," said Steve Williams, back in 2003. And by back in 2003, we mean this is an archive piece, so if it's since been usurped, you can tell us without being smug. "What's the record for teams playing each other the most times in one season?"

Just imagine the uncharted depths of mind-numbing boredom experienced by Wimbledon and Spurs fans in the 1998-99 season, when the two sides played each other six times - five of those matches played in just six weeks.

Two league meetings, two FA Cup ties and the two-legged League Cup semi-final saw Wimbledon win once, Tottenham win twice, and three draws in the typically unexciting manner of both clubs. Alex Hinton, now an AFC Wimbledon fan, describes the spell as "horrifying". We imagine the six meetings between Liverpool and Everton in the 1986-87 season were slightly more entertaining, but apparently no less horrifying for Ian Roberts, who recalls that Everton failed to win any of the six matches.

But these duels are piffling matters when you consider that five different pairs of teams have, at some time or another, played each other seven times in one season. Back in the 1950s, writes Mike Price, Stoke and Bury did just that inside a month, mostly because their FA Cup third round tie took five attempts before Stoke emerged victorious. A year later in the 1955-56 season, Chelsea and Burnley engaged in a similar serial battle, again taking five games to decide that Chelsea should go through from the fourth round of the Cup.

In the 1970s, Stoke and Manchester United's seven meetings saw Stoke win three times and Manchester United only once, says Andy Kelly. Meanwhile Arsenal and Leicester did the same three years later in 1974-75, drawing four times.

Graeme Kirkwood invites us to reminisce over the days when Airdrie and Raith Rovers played each other on seven occasions in the 1994-95 season. The results finished an even W2, D3, L2, but Graeme says the most important game was the Scottish Cup quarter-final, which Airdrie won 4-1 and Raith lost two players for second yellows. "It took the ref ages to get the red card out of his pocket while we were all going mad," he says. "Superb."

Indeed Graeme, but not quite as superb as Dundee and Dundee United, who met EIGHT times in the 1987/88 season. Four League encounters, one League Cup match, and three Scottish Cup ties make up this remarkable run of fixtures. And better still, says David Waine, "Dundee United knocked Dundee out of the Scottish Cup every season for five seasons in a row starting in 1986."

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Can you help?

Andy Richardson wants to know: "Which goalkeeper has the worst disciplinary record in history?"

"Has there ever been a footballer who has been the top-scorer in two different domestic leagues at the same time?" asks Dan Dadson.

"I see that Bucharest has got three teams into the group stages of the Uefa Cup; is that some sort of record for teams from the same city in the same competition?" enquires Thomas Baardseng.